[Info-vax] Vaxes shutting off this week

[Michael Kraemer]

JF Mezei schrieb:
> 
> The could have decided to do what they did to the 8086. Have a front end
> decoder that generates RISC instructions from the complex CISC instructions.

This was much easier on the x86 because this chip was so primitive
that it was almost RISC (Load/Store etc) already.
And the effort would pay off since intel could hope to recoup
the money from millions of sales to the desktop.
On VAX with its overly complex instruction set and addressing modes
this would have been a nightmare.
Look at the other extreme CISC archictecture of that time, the 68K.
Although it sold in much higher numbers than VAX, Motorola
decided not to "risc" the 68K. They proceeded to the 88K and PPC instead.
The 68060 was the last hooray, it maxed out at 66MHz, not far from the
VAX 4000 chip.

> 
> Unfortunatly, at the time the decision was made to dump VAX in favour of
> Alpha, they did not have the advantage of hindsight and
> didn'T know that Intel would succeed in getting the 8086 to break so
> many barriers.

VAX wasn't dumped but lived on until the end of the decade.
The most important barrier x86 succeeded to break was simply
ROI, something a small company like DEC could never achieve
by pimping up their aging VAX chip.

> And lets not forget that at the time, there was Sun breathing down
> Digital's neck with its own risc chips with Sun/Apolllo systes getting
> better price performance than VAX. (that was a marketing issue with
> prices for DEC gear still priced too high)

The workstation makers of the 1980s (Sun, Apollo, SGI, HP)
all started on the 68K, giving them almost VAX performance
but at much lower price. Just in time, i.e. towards the
end of that decade, they were about to switch to their own
successful RISC chips (Sparc,Mips,PA), whereas DEC
was goofing around with various projects that never came
to fruition. DEC simply missed the boat here.

> Had DEC lowered prices of VAX sufficiently, it could have competed
> against Sun, 

I'd estimate in 1990 a VAXstation would have to be as cheap
as a classical X-terminal to be price/performance competitive.
I'm not sure whether this would have covered the costs to produce it.